Finding my Own Style

The first step is to use words to describe what you'd like your home to be like, in terms of purpose, feel and look, with the aim of narrowing down to about five adjectives. Here are mine:

simple
comfortable
serene
welcoming
open

(The author also suggests a "Don't buy word" to prevent yourself from buying things you really shouldn't!)

As we have a number of things to buy for our house, including some expensive items, I thought I'd better think about decorating for a bit. While I enjoy reading A Beach Cottage (that first picture), it's not my style, exactly. I love the same textures, but I need more colour in my life. Besides, I'm a little further from the beach!

And I have a similar problem with Belgian Pearls: beautiful textures, but while those subtle tertiary tones are lovely under the soft Belgian light, our bright sunshine would turn it all to grey. We need stronger colours: acrylics, not washes, under our harsh light.

blues, especially blue-greens
yellow, except yellow-browns
purple, but not mauve
greens, except olive-greens
ecru, but not beige
red-browns
charcoal, but not black
soft whites and creams, but not pastels
peach and apricot, but not banana and orange